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Fiorah
Fiorah, the Character: Fiorah is the main supporting character of the series -- Mikoa's highest-ranking "sidekick." She is a Jeceau ville solant acrobat, singer, and dancer. As ville solant, she is an orphan adopted into the slave theatre as an infant, she has no family name, and she never knew her parents. At the beginning of the series, she is the property of Benereau "Ben" Vichesne's ville solant company, Chalice Moon. But Fiorah leaves the company to follow Mikoa, and she spends most of the series as a liberant (fugitive ville solant, living as a free person). Fiorah is nineteen ages old. (nineteen solstices, or nine and a half years, on Landfall; equivalent to nineteen years on Earth) She is short, petite, and light. She has short dark, boyish hair (she sometimes plays boys' roles in performances). When she wishes to appear more feminine, she wears pink and blue ribbons in her hair and clips long locks of false pink hair to her bangs, framing her face in pink. She has dark green eyes. Her Jeceau accent is so thick and she speaks so quickly that she is unintelligible to most non-Jeceau speakers (even though she's speaking Feldhasel Common). As a trained performer, however, she is able to restrain her accent, speak more slowly, and even mimic certain other accents at will. She is full of energy, fidgets constantly, and is often bored. She enjoys challenging social taboos and making other people feel awkward or uncomfortable. Fiorah is highly empathetic toward people she likes, fiercely loyal, and unusually wise for her age. She teaches Mikoa priceless lessons about life as a commoner -- things that Mikoa never learned as a privileged princess of Bruhinn. Fiorah is the character primarily responsible for maintaining Mikoa's secret identity, Mariah. It is hinted that Fiorah is a lesbian or perhaps bisexual. She makes ambiguously suggestive advances toward Mikoa, although it is never clear if this is sexual attraction, playful teasing, or a Bruhinn/Jeceau cultural miscommunication. Later in the series, Fiorah openly declares her love for Mikoa, but it is still not clear whether her attraction is platonic or sexual. She is never openly, sexually forward -- speaking instead in thick innuendo. Adding to the ambiguity, Fiorah and Samurrian appear to have an ambiguously casual sexual relationship -- or perhaps had one in the past. It is possible that Fiorah is anything from bisexual and polyamorous, to simply very comfortable in her own skin. Fiorah is naturally gifted in addition to being a trained expert acrobat. She can do a wide variety of stunts and acrobatics, as well as many sleight-of-hand tricks, such as pickpocketing. A recurring theme throughout the series is Fiorah's convenient kleptomania -- she often reveals conveniently stolen items, after the fact, thereby helping the characters out of troublesome situations. She is the most dexterous character in the entire series. She also knows how to play a seemingly endless variety of musical instruments, though she strongly prefers to sing and dance. Her singing voice is radiant and enthralling. She is trained (by her Chalice Moon compatriot Samurrian) in an extremely rare style of flag-dance called Ti Bet Chi. Samurrian and Fiorah are the only known living Ti Bet Chi masters, though Fiorah does not realize this. Ti Bet Chi is actually an ancient dual-wielding swordfighting technique passed down by members of the Jade Legion. During the series, Fiorah learns the true nature of Ti Bet Chi and becomes an expert swordfighter. Part of the traditional Ti Bet Chi costume includes long weightless sashes tied to the wrists. Fiorah likes the look and often wears her pink Ti Bet Chi sashes as decorative wristcuffs. Fiorah is mundane, with no magical gift whatsoever. Fiorah's real father was Prince Theadreau, Duke of Chesny (son of Emperor Cadeus IX and father of Emperor Cadeus X). Fiorah's mother was a commoner Chesny maid named Viviana Rose, Prince Theadreau's mistress and true love. At birth, she was given to the ville solant to avoid scandal. Thus, Fiorah is the half-sister of Emperor Cadeus X, the last Jeceau emperor. This means that Fiorah is the last surviving Green Blood and is the true heiress to the Malachite Dais and the Sky Key (the Jeceau crown marks). She learns this during the series, and her claim to the lost Sky Key is a major plot in later books. As the last Green Blood, the Jade Legion tracks her closely and secretly protects her. Editorial Background and Trivia: In previous revisions of the Grim Dream, dating all the way back to 1989, the character Fiorah was originally named Mini, then Min, then Min'Fhura. She was part of a ville solant acrobatic duo with her lifelong companion, Fike. The character Fike was eventually deleted from the story, to help Fiorah stand alone as the iconic "charismatic rogue acrobat" archetype character of the story. Some of Fike's characteristics and backstory were divided between Fiorah and Samurrian. Fiorah, the Magic Spell: In Elder, the word fiorah means "fire" or, more specifically, "the heat within fire." Fiorah, by this name, is a beginner shadowcasting technique -- one of the simplest known shadow magic spells. Using fiorah, a shadowcaster may harness and multiply the heat within a flame, causing the flame to burst and swell violently for a moment. This spell requires no energy from the caster. Instead, the caster draws upon the inherent heat of the flame itself -- the flame provides the energy. It is therefore a simple spell to learn and was taught to beginner shadowcasters, when magical training was common during the Myriad. Despite being so simple, the spell is potentially very dangerous. The heat of the source flame is multiplied exponentially in a fraction of a second. A single candle may plume as tall as a man. A campfire could explode with the force of a small bomb. During the Myriad, a candidate's magical potential was often tested by teaching them fiorah (using a small candle), but students in training were banned from using it without supervision. Nonetheless, many ziraduun (and some innocent bystanders) were killed in fiorah-related accidents. In Book 1, Mikoa learns fiorah from Khazr.